James Schamus

JAMES SCHAMUS is an award-winning screenwriter (“The Ice Storm”) and producer (“Brokeback Mountain”), and former CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company whose films have included “Milk,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “The Pianist,” “Coraline,” and “Dallas Buyers Club.” He is professor of Professional Practice in Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory. He is also the author of "Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word," published by the University of Washington Press, and is currently completing another book, "My Wife is a Terrorist: Lessons in Storytelling from the Department of Homeland Security," for Harvard University Press. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English from U.C. Berkeley. His current projects include (as Executive Producer) “Suffragettes,” starring Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep, and (as Producer) “Alone in Berlin,” starring Emma Thompson.

Director's Note

“I have a conflicted relationship both with the topic of ‘the economy’ and with the premise of the series as a whole. Indeed, the concept of the ‘economy,’ even its constitution as an object of scientific study, as a thing, is relatively recent, and to me smells of an ideological maneuver wherein we replace what are essentially political relations with a mystifying body of social science ‘knowledge’ to be managed and manipulated by financial/political elites.

The premise of WE THE ECONOMY is to make otherwise complex, obscure, or academic ideas approachable and understandable by laymen, thus empowering us to participate more knowledgeably in public debates about policy etc. That’s a laudable premise I’m proud to be associated with. But the danger of it is that it already assumes that what is being made digestible - ‘economics’ — is somehow an ‘objective’ object of knowledge, rather than being itself already, in the very way it packages its concepts and ideas, a field of political decision and social action — one which helps naturalize the grotesque domination of people and natural resources of our current system.

My few minutes’ contribution to the endeavor, in the classic form of an ‘educational video,’ goes for a couple of takeaways: primarily, that no one who watches my films will ever again be able to think of money and banks as ‘natural’ objects, but rather will see them as sites of profound and enduring social and political struggles - struggles that everyone has a right to participate in.”

Quiz

Which of the following are forms of money?

Certificates of deposit

All of these

Checks written on a bank account

$20 bills

Dollar bills, checks, and certificates of deposit are easily exchanged for goods and services and thus are considered forms of money. All of these are considered fiat money that has no intrinsic value, but can be used as money because a government decreed that it has value for that purpose.

America has the “almighty dollar” but what currency has greater value currently in circulation?

The Chinese yuan

The British pound

The Japanese yen

The euro

The euro (sign: €; code: EUR) is the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union and is the official currency of the eurozone, which consists of 18 of the 28 member states of the European Union. It is used by an estimated 334 million Europeans and was officially adopted in 1995.

In 1626 Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan from local Indians for goods worth 60 Dutch Guilders. How much was that worth?

$24

$20,000

$2,000

$2,000,000

Although Minuit purchased Manhattan for what was then $24 of shells and trinkets, Wampum was considered a true currency. Wampum was used by European traders in the region, but the ease by which they produced their own wampum caused inflation. Also, purchasing land was not something that Indian cultures of the time understood, rather, they believed they were loaning the land to Minuit.

Twitter

So I've got money in the bank now.......to save? or to spend?

@Ashley14Martin

Who scoffs at 7.5% R.O.I and then says they are going to save their money in the bank? For what .03%? #IdiotOlympics#losers